It was a regular afternoon. Janet Zitting was around eight or ten years old. She was hanging out with the neighbour’s child. In the middle of the conversation, she asked, “Oh, so how many mums do you have?” The other child looked perplexed. “What do you mean? I only have one mum.” Zitting walked away from that conversation feeling sorry for the child. One mum seemed impossibly lonely.Zitting, now 32, grew up in a family that practised polygamy. She was raised by her father and four mothers, including her biological mother. And she has 44 siblings. Her family was part of a polygamous group called The Work, an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, led by Warren Jeffs.Janet Zitting’s video, in which she introduces some of her 44 siblings, is blowing up on the internet. Netizens have opinions, obviously, but for Zitting, it’s just another Tuesday.
A family of 50!
In the video that’s going viral, Zitting introduces herself as ‘kid number 25’. Then there is Betty, ‘kid number 18’, and Pam, ‘sibling number 3’. And there is Lee, ‘sibling number 2’. The list goes on. Zitting, of course, remembers all their names. How can she not? They all grew up together under the same roof.Zitting was born into a household so large that private space barely existed. She shared a bedroom with seven sisters, and during one stretch of home construction, as many as 16 children crammed into a single room. She found her own workaround: a blanket closet became her personal napping spot, the closest thing to solitude she could find. But she didn’t feel this arrangement was anything out of the ordinary. “For me, it was totally normal growing up this way. But when I talk to other people, it’s like a reminder of how it’s not their normal too, so it gives me that perspective,” Zitting told USA Today. “It was very secretive when I was a child. So, as I became an adult, it felt pretty freeing to talk about it.”In the United States, polygamy, or being married to more than one person, is illegal; however, it is decriminalised in Utah. Zitting’s family was part of the group The Work, and polygamy was not uncommon among its members.Zitting left the group about 13 years ago and is the first of her siblings to do so. According to her, half of her siblings follow the group, but the other half have left. “A lot of people ask if I had to escape, but I just told my parents that I was moving out. It was hard in the beginning just because when you first leave a religion like that, everyone’s so passionate about it, so they think you’re making a mistake. But I knew I wasn’t. I just knew that it wasn’t for me,” she said.
The internet is curious
Janet Zitting is now one of the most recognisable faces on TikTok. Her videos on growing up with 44 siblings have taken the platform by storm. Many are curious about how the whole family structure works, and Zitting is patiently answering their questions.“The reactions just make me laugh because people are shocked. Some people are saying it’s AI. Some people are saying there’s no way. But it’s just funny that my life, what is normal to me, can have such a big reaction,” she said.According to Zitting, one of the common questions people ask is whether she can remember her siblings’ names. Yes, along with their birthdays. What’s the age gap between the oldest and the youngest? Forty-eight years down to 15.She and her siblings also have a group chat where they discuss life, like any others. “We have a sibling group chat, a sister group chat, and then there are a lot of other side chats,” she revealed.
Pic courtesy: Instagram/ Janet Zittiing
Growing up with 44 siblings
While it is fun to have 44 siblings, being part of such a huge family also had its downsides. Feeding and raising that many children took a village that happened to already live under one roof. Cooking, cleaning, gardening, tending livestock, watching the younger children: it ran on a constant rotation, everyone pitching in because the household simply didn’t function otherwise. A single Costco run around the holidays, she recalled, could cost about $1,500. The parents didn’t throw birthday parties or celebrate Christmas. Her parents said it was ‘worldly’; however, looking back, Zitting thinks it had more to do with what the family could actually afford. Even now, as adults, her siblings mostly save celebrations for milestone birthdays, the 30ths and 40ths.
Life on her own terms
Zitting is a mother now. She has a child with her husband. She hopes to have maybe one or two more children; that’s it. “I don’t plan on having a million kids because I raised some of my younger siblings and I nannied a lot, so I feel like I already had children of my own in a way,” she said.Janet Zitting is now living life on her own terms. She describes herself as spiritual rather than religious these days. However, she does not have any ill feelings towards the group or the siblings who have chosen to practise it. “The religion was really controlling for me, for the type of person that I am. It felt like I was in a box. So I’m really happy I’m not a part of that any more, even though the religion is for a lot of my family… I’m just happy I realised that it’s not for me.”She has a close bond with her siblings. No wonder they agreed to show up in her viral video. “A lot of them really are truly my best friends, and I love how close we all are, especially my sisters. I’m even closer with them, and they’re just all so loving, so kind, and they’re so beautiful inside and out. And I love how family-oriented we are.”
